"Common Humanity"

At a Manhattan dock one morning last week, the U. S. Lines' passenger ship, American Trader, had her cargo stowed, her gangplank up, all else in readiness to sail with 53 passengers to Europe. Once safely across the Atlantic, the American Trader, under special orders from the U. S. State Department, was to take aboard stranded U.S. citizens, get them home with all speed.

But still at her dock at week's end was the American Trader. Her C.I.O. crew suddenly struck for a $150-per-month war risk compensation for each seaman (average wages: $70 a month). The union also wants a $25,000 life insurance policy for each man, to be paid for by the U. S. Treasury. Another crew walked off the U. S. Lines' American Traveler with identical demands. By week's end two passenger vessels and four freighters destined for evacuation of U. S. refugees from Europe were tied up, foundering Secretary of State Cordell Hull's plans to speed evacuation on American-flag ships.

Reminding the American Trader's crew that Franklin Roosevelt had proclaimed a national emergency, tough Captain George Fried of the U. S. Bureau of Marine Inspection & Navigation had up twelve strikers before a board of investigation, threatened to revoke their seamen's certificates. The C.I.O. National Maritime Union's hulking President Joe Curran had previously ended a similar flareup on two other ships by agreeing to negotiate, making the settlements retroactive. He first said his union had no hand in last week's strikes, later declared: "Our offer to furnish crews without wages for ships carrying refugees free still stands. . . . But common humanity compels us to make some effort to provide for our families before embarking on a voyage through submarine and mine-infested waters."

To other union men it was all very interesting: the first tussle between Labor and Government over problems raised by war abroad. Its outcome might give a clue to what Labor can get, or may have to take, if the U. S. should go to war.

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